Technology Development of a High-Capacity High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium Transportation Concept

This paper discusses the technology development efforts that led to the development of a high-capacity high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) transportation concept. In 2018, the Department of Energy tasked Idaho National Laboratory to investigate strategies to transport large quantities of HALEU. To complete this task, Idaho National Laboratory collaborated with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. One of the project outcomes was a transportation concept of five individual Type B packages transported on a single legal-weight truck. The total payload capacity of this concept is 1,881 kg (4,149 lb) of HALEU in the form of uranium dioxide (UO2) powder. It utilizes an existing Type B packaging design carrying a novel fuel basket design with an incorporated flux trap. The basket can be loaded with 18 individual fuel canisters. The research collaboration investigated the U.S. certification potential of this concept, which included evaluating criticality safety, radiological safety, thermal safety, structural integrity, and confinement under hypothetical accident scenarios of transport. The results of these evaluations demonstrated a promising potential for the U.S. certification of this concept. Eventually, these efforts led to the pursuance and issuance of a U.S. patent, thus protecting the associated intellectual property. Current short-term goals include making this intellectual property available to private industry partners for licensing, directly supporting Department of Energy’s objectives of accelerating the commercialization of national-laboratory-generated intellectual property. Long-term research goals would include exploring the feasibility of transporting other uranium chemical forms (e.g., UF4) or refining operational procedures to load or unload the packagings.